Child in the Darkness
by Ithilas
Summary: He was everything that a child ought to have been and nothing that a hero should have been.


'_Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy'_

_-__**Anonymous**_

There are tales of a time long before our own. Tales of a time where the darkness was swallowing the light of stars and beings known as the Heartless destroyed entire worlds. The peace that we know now was not even a dream to those who lived them. For them, peace was but a concept of something that they would never truly know again. Their lives becoming so twisted and tangled within the threads of fate that only the strongest Champions of the worlds survived the invasion of the Heartless. Gathering together in one of the few places that could still be called safe, the survivors waited and hoped for an answer to all their prayers. And finally, one day their prayers were answered in the form of a small boy with eyes brighter than even the clearest of summer skies and a weapon that he'd obtained as his world crumbled to pieces around him and the last bits of light died to send him to safety.

The child, for that is what he was, was forced into the prominence and danger that are all so often associated with the role of being a hero. The child who'd wanted nothing more than to find his friends if only to assure himself that he was not the only one still living from his doomed world was forced to set aside his self-appointed task as the weary faces stared down at him with blossoming hope in their eyes. At an age where he should have been out discovering the wonders of the world around him he was instead struggling against the effects of too much healing magic in too short a time whilst dealing with the pain of blisters covering his hands. The child grew adept at hiding the bandages on his hands with the gloves that were constantly adjusted in order to ease the pain that ran through the slender appendages.

So very many forget that the Master of the Keyblade, the one who ensured the safety of our worlds was only a child. A child struggling to accept that he was alone and that his closest friend now hated him because of the venom whispered into his ears. We hear of the other Champions such as Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart and we compare them to the Master of the Keyblade. We compare them and we find the Master of the Keyblade wanting because we forget that he had no training, that he was no Champion, that he was everything a child ought to have been and nothing that a hero should have been. We forget so very, very much because we see the man that the child became with blue eyes clouded over with shadows that no child should know so intimately. We see the pictures of the man with the easy smile and forget about the lines creasing the forehead brushed by cinnamon colored hair as wary eyes look for things that we no longer see.

In a time that had been written down and memorialized so that we do not dare to forget the darkness that ravaged our worlds until there were but handfuls of us remaining we forget the acts of courage and selflessness that defined the light that was struggling so desperately to remain lit. There was once a child who was faced with death and with determined blue eyes he turned his weapon upon himself to save the few who still lived. Smiles will cross the faces of children at the next turn of the story that states that the hero returned to life and that he went on to fight the dark but no mention is made of the fact that the child hero was not whole as he did so. A heart is never meant to be split as it was then and the hero paid the price for the lives of his friends as his heart was forever split between the light and dark.

A child of the light with a shadow of the darkness to stand behind him with twin keyblades in each hand.

Smile stretching his face as he reached out to his friend once lost in the darkness is the image that we hold of the Master of the Keyblade at what was thought to be the final battle. We ignore the heart wrenching pain that sent tremors through his body hidden only by an inner strength that we may never know. In the books with the painstakingly hand painted images is one of the child standing with one hand resting softly against the closed doors that represent the seal to the Realm of Darkness and the conclusion to a battle that carried with it a price that seemed too heavy to bear as long strands of cinnamon hair hang limply over softly glowing sapphire eyes.

'_The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by'_

_-__**Felix Adler**_


End file.
